Fic: First Love, Last Rites
In which NP writes a fic. Notes at the end.
First Love, Last Rites
By this time, he’s on his last life, and she’s a billion years older. But this isn’t an ordinary place, any more than they are ordinary people.
She slides into the booth, seating herself next to him, though the banquette opposite is empty. Her silk robes susurrate on the leather cushion.
He turns his head: his first impulse was to tell whoever it was to go away, that he wasn’t interested in company. He’s enjoying a good meal and a tankard of non-specific intoxicant. They do a mean fish finger platter here.
But she’s already here, already in his booth, already picking up a spoon, and she has that smile he knows, remembers.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” he says, almost laughing.
Her eyes are sparkling, her smile wide and welcoming, meant for him. And he gives in to temptation, because he always does.
“Another one of these, for the lady,” he says out loud, beckoning to a hovering waiter shape, pointing toward his tankard. “And her own bowl of custard.”
Their booth is large, meant for a crowd, but they sit close together, in a little circle of light. The fish, piled high in paper-lined baskets, is so nearly perfect as to demand appreciation, and they agree vigorously on this. They give each other sideways glances: his rueful, hers self-satisfied.
Aside from this, they don’t talk. They think about the past -- well, he does, because there’s a lot of past to cover. There have been times when he’s been her only savior; there have been times she’s welcomed him home. And times she’s kicked him out on his Time Lord arse.
Some things can only be described by telling stories, and, more than anyone else, she already knows his stories.
Around them, he is aware of voices, laughter; utensils being utilized and glasses slid and set down. Beings come and go: there are the sounds of cloth and leather and metal and bubble wrap. Friends are being greeted: jokes are being told.
They are not alone. But one of the beauties of this place is that they are as private as they choose to be.
He is not sure how they find themselves outside. It must have something to do with the non-specific intoxicant.
Her mouth tastes of oceans. It must be the fish.
He is a little bent with age, but she is still as perfect as when he first spotted her, thirteen lives ago. Sea-blue and -green robes hiked, human-hot and tight as the narrowest of escapes, she grips him with determination, wrings his final efforts from him.
There’s a limit to how long he can stand up, and he reaches it, but she stands still while he tumbles, stars spinning around him. For being just under his feet, the ground seems a long way away.
“Did you ....?” he wants to know, because it matters.
“Of course,” she replies. “This is your hallucination.”
And indeed it is. The stars laugh and dance; her moon crouches at her feet. And he, too, prone at her feet: it was ever thus.
“Did you love me back, ever?” he begs. “Even a little?”
“Of course,” Gaia says back, and in her voice he hears winds, waters, Time and Birth and Change. “Every, every one.”
~oOo~
Notes:
I had the idea for this about nine years ago. At that time I didn't know which Doctor it was: it turned out to be Eleven.
The title was borrowed from an early short story collection by Ian McEwan.
First Love, Last Rites
By this time, he’s on his last life, and she’s a billion years older. But this isn’t an ordinary place, any more than they are ordinary people.
She slides into the booth, seating herself next to him, though the banquette opposite is empty. Her silk robes susurrate on the leather cushion.
He turns his head: his first impulse was to tell whoever it was to go away, that he wasn’t interested in company. He’s enjoying a good meal and a tankard of non-specific intoxicant. They do a mean fish finger platter here.
But she’s already here, already in his booth, already picking up a spoon, and she has that smile he knows, remembers.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” he says, almost laughing.
Her eyes are sparkling, her smile wide and welcoming, meant for him. And he gives in to temptation, because he always does.
“Another one of these, for the lady,” he says out loud, beckoning to a hovering waiter shape, pointing toward his tankard. “And her own bowl of custard.”
Their booth is large, meant for a crowd, but they sit close together, in a little circle of light. The fish, piled high in paper-lined baskets, is so nearly perfect as to demand appreciation, and they agree vigorously on this. They give each other sideways glances: his rueful, hers self-satisfied.
Aside from this, they don’t talk. They think about the past -- well, he does, because there’s a lot of past to cover. There have been times when he’s been her only savior; there have been times she’s welcomed him home. And times she’s kicked him out on his Time Lord arse.
Some things can only be described by telling stories, and, more than anyone else, she already knows his stories.
Around them, he is aware of voices, laughter; utensils being utilized and glasses slid and set down. Beings come and go: there are the sounds of cloth and leather and metal and bubble wrap. Friends are being greeted: jokes are being told.
They are not alone. But one of the beauties of this place is that they are as private as they choose to be.
He is not sure how they find themselves outside. It must have something to do with the non-specific intoxicant.
Her mouth tastes of oceans. It must be the fish.
He is a little bent with age, but she is still as perfect as when he first spotted her, thirteen lives ago. Sea-blue and -green robes hiked, human-hot and tight as the narrowest of escapes, she grips him with determination, wrings his final efforts from him.
There’s a limit to how long he can stand up, and he reaches it, but she stands still while he tumbles, stars spinning around him. For being just under his feet, the ground seems a long way away.
“Did you ....?” he wants to know, because it matters.
“Of course,” she replies. “This is your hallucination.”
And indeed it is. The stars laugh and dance; her moon crouches at her feet. And he, too, prone at her feet: it was ever thus.
“Did you love me back, ever?” he begs. “Even a little?”
“Of course,” Gaia says back, and in her voice he hears winds, waters, Time and Birth and Change. “Every, every one.”
~oOo~
Notes:
I had the idea for this about nine years ago. At that time I didn't know which Doctor it was: it turned out to be Eleven.
The title was borrowed from an early short story collection by Ian McEwan.